I stink at GalCiv II

What am I doing wrong?

from GalCiv2 Forums
Playing GalCiv II since Feb. My basic strategy: I try to build a money making planet, usually the home planet, a research planet and a super production planet (40+ shields).
My problem: I can’t win on the challenging level. I’m always behind tech-wise, even with the tech slider up to 60%. Other races have photons torpedoes while I’m researching laser III’s. When I end up in a war, my freighters get destroyed, I run out of money, and any competitive ship I try to build takes too long to construct. After running at 100%, suddenly I’m losing 100-200 bc per turn. I have to reduce the slider to 30% or lower, just to stay in the green, but only by 1 or 2 bc. Morale, that’s fun too, tax over 49%, and watch it plummet. By then my defenders, with shields and inferior attack, can’t stop attackers with powerful beam weapons. How can the computer have a frigate with 27 beam attack? I can only manage to build one with an attack of 6 and shield defense of 6. Transports show up one after another, wearing down my planetary troops in a couple of turns, goodbye planet. I’ve played other games on normal level where I had to put the slider on zero, had taxes over 50%, and was still losing money every turn. Part of my empire rebelled and I lost several planets. Perhaps too many factories on a planet use too much money for maintenance? Is it bad to try to use all the squares available on a planet? Should I avoid planetary improvements for industry and trade?


strategies
9,529 views 11 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I try to build a money making planet, usually the home planet, a research planet and a super production planet (40+ shields).


Looks like you need more than three planets

Generally, aside from planets *completely* dedicated to research or shipbuilding, you should try and get as high a population as you can reasonably manage on every planet you own, and build at least a couple of economic buildings on each to boost their tax output.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Well, tell us some more things first.

1: What difficulty level(s)?
2: What civ (and, if any, modifications you've made to it)
3: Your priorities in research.
4: More about your general strategy.
5: Whether you're militaristic, peaceful, etc.
6: If you have DA or not (I know I don't   )

That way we can better understand your...erm...dilemma.

-Gyrel
Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You didn't mention if you have played on a lower difficulty level and if you haven't then that would be a good place to start, so you can get the hang of the strategies for the game.

If you have played at lower levels and moved up to challenging, then thats a different story. The first thing to consider is that you have to keep a close eye on your economy sliders. To the point of micromanaging. Really.

A strategy that I employ is to start the game off with heavy research funding and use cash to buy colony ships and factories on the homeworld. to keep your morale high while taxing heavily, try to delay building infrastructure on your colony worlds until you build up enough population to support it financially. Obviously this includes grabbing as many anomalies as you can to finance your colonization.

It sounds like you need to consider your research topics more critically as well. Make sure you keep up with weapons and defensive techs. It sounds like you spend alot of time working on your Trade, but you need to maintain a decent Navy to discourage aggressor races so make sure you keep your ships upgraded.

There are probably a few hundred threads on this forum with hints and tips on strategies, so do a little searching to get some more detailed info if the above doesn't help any.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
But anyway, when I play (with my custom civ) I take the laid-back approach:
colonizing, building influence starbases to increase my influence and to act as a resupply point for my ships, researching diplomatic/logistics/planetary improvement techs (which I sometimes trade with some more militaristic civs to gain upgraded weapons), building small, agile fleets of interceptors, fighters, gunboats and frigates, and completely crushing anyone who wages war with me.

When I upgrade my planets, I tend to not specialize them too much. I just put one more of one type of building on them than other one. Also, make sure you look at what kind of tile bonuses you have on the planet. For example, you wouldn't want to make a money-making planet out of a planet with 6 manufacturing bonus tiles, would you?

Note that these strategies only apply to DL.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I’ll try to address all comments with one response. I’m using DL. I’ve worked up from beginner level and now I’m playing challenging level. The current civ I’m using is a custom. It has morale, speed and range bonuses. My beginning game strategy is to research better engines. I have a modified colony ship with two engines so I can get planets normally I may not get to first with the standard colony ship. This usually gets me 6 decent planets. I also purchase initial factories for each planet. Then I research up to trade. Then research to basic miniaturization. Then I research to plasma weapons. Then I research diplomacy & alliances. I go back to a starship defense, perhaps the armor series. When researching armor improvements takes too long, I move to missile defense. Then I research to planetary defense, which is sometimes almost a prohibitive amount of time. If I wait till later, it’s usually too late for the invasion. Then research more miniaturization. I try to play a peaceful game. I usually pay all extortions, but sometimes the money is used to invade me anyway. By this time, the beginning of the end is near.
At lower levels of the game, I won using influence, alliance and technology victories. In the tech victory, I was allied to all races but one. That race remained friendly; it just wouldn’t move to close, so I could ally. I’ve never won a conquest victory. Perhaps my tech research priorities need revision. Thanks to everyone for the helpful comments.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I tend to specialize most of my planets, but keep some "balanced". I find the economical capital to be an especially precious one. for that I use a "decent world" (the higher quality the better), which doesn't have especially major research bonus tiles to it. If it got 1 or 2 100% production bonus tiles, that doesn't hurt. what i really love on such a world are morale bonus tiles, because that allows you to make a perfect use of morale-rising buildings which is perfect for the matter. also an agricultural bonus is nice for this world. Then of course everything filled up with income rising buildings. also I tend to use a few other ~PQ10 worlds which have no other "qualifications" for money making solely.
When waging war, I go especially for those "capital" worlds, with econ and tech being my highest priority.

If I run short on money I sell the AIs "useless" tech.
I tend to research anti-rocket techs with the sole purpose to sell it to AIs, with the intend never to build any rocket ships really.
also I use to push quite early for SensorsIV and build the Eye of Universe. when I'm confident they cannot beat me to this, I sell them also sensor techs.
Also propulsion, which is outdated for me and some weapons (like lasers when I'm at last in the category above them)

one example:
in my current game I play at tough, huge galaxy, 7 (or maybe even 8?) opponents.
when i ran short on money i focused on research and research a serious of rocket-defense systems: chaff, smart chaff, ecmI-II, took me 1 turn each.
i then went and sold all these techs to every single AI.

a "trick" is not to offer them 2 or more at once, but do it 1-by-1 from lowest to highest.
in average I got for every tech ~130bc from every single ai, which netted me ~5000 bc there. doing that somewhat strategically and for every "non-strategic" tech let's you gain quite some serious money, which can then be used to keep spending high, to run a few deficitary worlds with rheavy research/production. Or as i did it in the case of that ECM trade: i used the money to buy a troop transporter and a quite newly conquered (ex-drengin) world which i needed to conquer the drengin homeworld which gave me another shiny tech capital (bringing one in from my core-worlds, would have taken way too long, since the bloody Yor were in the way...).
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hi. I´m using the same strategy as you. I don´t know if you have only three planets or you are using three specialized planets. I think that your lack of tech is because you aren´t using the diplomacy to obtain techs. My key is trade techs (i concentrate in techs that allows me to build trade goods.) Other thing; if you have a superproductive planet, don´t use another planet for production. This would dry your treasury. Other point; sell tech to minor races as possible. They are very rich and open to buy techs. Your economic planet must be a high class planet, with low productive capacity and high population (and entertainment.) Try to use the terrain bonuses, so the manteinance stay low (you don´t need build 2 research factory when you have a tile with a 100% research bonus).

Summary

- High diplomacy points is a key for victory (if you are allowing tech trading)
- Use the terrain bonus and don´t build unnecesary improvements
- Economic planet must be high populated and high entertained
- Try to build many economics improvements in rest of your planets, so you can rise the industrial slider to 100%. This will rush your research
- Don´t attacks at the first stages of the game. Build a defensive armada, so you can concentrate your advanced techs in offensive ships.
- It could be usefull invest in morale bonus when you building your race, or use a government with morale bonus. This will allow you to rise the taxes.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
.....
If I run short on money I sell the AIs "useless" tech.
I tend to research anti-rocket techs with the sole purpose to sell it to AIs, with the intend never to build any rocket ships really.
also I use to push quite early for SensorsIV and build the Eye of Universe. when I'm confident they cannot beat me to this, I sell them also sensor techs.
Also propulsion, which is outdated for me and some weapons (like lasers when I'm at last in the category above them)

one example:
in my current game I play at tough, huge galaxy, 7 (or maybe even 8?) opponents.
when i ran short on money i focused on research and research a serious of rocket-defense systems: chaff, smart chaff, ecmI-II, took me 1 turn each.
i then went and sold all these techs to every single AI.

a "trick" is not to offer them 2 or more at once, but do it 1-by-1 from lowest to highest.
in average I got for every tech ~130bc from every single ai, which netted me ~5000 bc there. doing that somewhat strategically and for every "non-strategic" tech let's you gain quite some serious money, which can then be used to keep spending high, to run a few deficitary worlds with rheavy research/production. Or as i did it in the case of that ECM trade: i used the money to buy a troop transporter and a quite newly conquered (ex-drengin) world which i needed to conquer the drengin homeworld which gave me another shiny tech capital (bringing one in from my core-worlds, would have taken way too long, since the bloody Yor were in the way...).


This strategy never occured to me, thank you very much!
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hi. I´m using the same strategy as you. I don´t know if you have only three planets or you are using three specialized planets. I think that your lack of tech is because you aren´t using the diplomacy to obtain techs. My key is trade techs (i concentrate in techs that allows me to build trade goods.) Other thing; if you have a superproductive planet, don´t use another planet for production. This would dry your treasury. Other point; sell tech to minor races as possible. They are very rich and open to buy techs. Your economic planet must be a high class planet, with low productive capacity and high population (and entertainment.) Try to use the terrain bonuses, so the manteinance stay low (you don´t need build 2 research factory when you have a tile with a 100% research bonus).

Summary

- High diplomacy points is a key for victory (if you are allowing tech trading)
- Use the terrain bonus and don´t build unnecesary improvements
- Economic planet must be high populated and high entertained
- Try to build many economics improvements in rest of your planets, so you can rise the industrial slider to 100%. This will rush your research
- Don´t attacks at the first stages of the game. Build a defensive armada, so you can concentrate your advanced techs in offensive ships.
- It could be usefull invest in morale bonus when you building your race, or use a government with morale bonus. This will allow you to rise the taxes.


I usually average around six planets to start. Three planet get specialized. You are correct, I rarely traded techs and never sold them. Your other points are helping me think "outside the box". Thanks for a great post, very informative!
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hi. You´re wellcome.

I forget another point. Don´t uses your home planet as the economy planet. This is because it is class 10 and you wouldn´t have many tiles to build economic and entertainment improvements. It´s better to use it as the industrial center or research, if it have a tile with 300% research bonus or a manufacture bonus. And don´t build food improvements in the home world, because it will grow too much, and the morale will go down.

With advanced governments, morale is very very important. Home planet morale help to mantain your rule.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hey, I also pay the extortions or else I go to war. The thing is though is that I use Humans and on my home world I put in 2 manufacturing centres, 2 entertainment centres and 2 research centres, if there are any more tiles I put on economic buildings and save the odd 1 or two for special projects. I buy allot of my initial factories and colony ships which put me into the yellow and then sometimes red. I normally play challenging. What I do though with the planets I have is that if it's small I put in 1 factory and the rest economic or 1 factory and 1 farm and 2 or 3 entertainment centres. If the planet is big I put allot into research and a manufacturing planet for all the special projects and ships. My stretagy is mainly to concentrate on my economy and have 1 pure manufacturing planet and 1 or 2 pure research planets, the rest economic. I spend nothing on ships.
This puts me in an akward position because I can't defend myself, I don't even trade! Totally self-sufficiant! But see, my economy nets me with at least 2,000 or 3,000 per turn, and that's including paying the full amount for spies. And money feeds the the War Machine. When I get into war, I soon build warships on the planets that have a shipyard (mainly my home world and the manufacturing planet) and ahnilate them all! I beat them using my economy as a super arms race and knowing what they have and countering it.
I know this stretagy is very radicle and takes allot of time to implement but it is definately worth a try.